Sunday, October 28, 2007

Almost Funny...But Not Quite

And people say our district's school board has problems. From Newsday:

Tensions among feuding factions of the Brentwood Board of Education intensified this week when a former district clerk filed a complaint to the state alleging a special board meeting was illegal. As a result, the former clerk said, all actions taken that night should be voided.

Kathleen Hoey, 46, district clerk until July, said a special board meeting Monday violated the state regulation that requires at least 24 hours notice to board members about a planned meeting.

Hoey argued that the board violated community members' voting and civil rights by not notifying three of the seven board members. They included Tomas Del Rio, Joseph Fritz and Gail Kirkham.

Hoey said the majority faction - board president George Talley, along with Stephen Coleman, Lorraine Pace and Suzanne Belanger - did not act in the interest of the district.

"They cannot pick and choose who they want to come to a meeting," Hoey said.

Talley said Del Rio, Fritz and Kirkham were not informed of Monday's special meeting because they had all responded to an e-mail message earlier asking for their availability in October by stating they were unavailable for special meetings during the month.

"Why would I notify them if they already notified me they were not available?" he said.

Del Rio said that although he had responded earlier that he would be unavailable for special meetings this month, the law requires that he be notified nonetheless. "They don't want us to participate," he said. Fritz agreed, saying, "you're expected to be notified."

The special meeting was called primarily to hire a lawyer to represent the board in response to an earlier complaint by Del Rio and Fritz to the state against the majority faction calling for their ouster. Talley and the majority have also filed a complaint calling for Del Rio's and Fritz's removal. All three complaints await a legally binding decision from the state education commissioner.

What a lousy example to set for district schoolchildren. Thank goodness our board's issues and internecine battling have not sunk to the lows of those in Brentwood. I do, however, think the Brentwood board's extreme outlandish behavior should make members of SD15 realize how such skirmishing benefits no one at all - least of all the children of this district.

i'm confused -- the excluded board members had filed a complaint against the rest of the board. so when the "majority" members called a meeting to hire a lawyer to defend them against the excluded members, then the same excluded members got upset they weren't invited to be at that meeting?

am i not reading that correctly? if i am, isn't that completely absurd???

Wake up! Our school district problems are much worse. You obviously do not attend the Lawrence School Board meetings. You should attend and see how bad it really is. The hostility is palpable and I am personally truly disgusted. I wish we could have a district meeting with public and private school parents attending. This hostility has to stop or the state will take over and both sides will lose. State review is just around the corner!

Friends thanks to Hashem's amazing love, by allowing His Bochur Yeshua to die on the Etz for your Avaros, you can be guaranteed a special place in olom haba!

Don't miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity to see all of your past, present, and future sins forgiven!

How do you get this offer? Well if you call 1-888-Needhim youl'l be immediately put in touch with a counselor who can share with you G-d's plan of salvation through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. So don't delay call today!Call 1-888-Needhim!

Until next time this is Rabbi Neal Wendrow wishing you the best of Jesus' love!

"Wow, great way to show tolerance of other religious thoughts and views."

Now that's what I call character.

Despite how smug and snotty all those comments seem on the surface, Anonymous 8:47 is able to look beneath the surface to recognize and acknowledge the great tolerance for different religious thoughts and views for which this community is so well known.

I tolerate all religions, except J4J. If they simply called themselves Christian, thing would be different

Who the hell are you to dictate what someone should designate themselves as? Now try this, I don't like Jews, if they would only call themselves Muslims, things would be different.

You are without a doubt worse than the others, at least they were honest, you are actually looking to justify your aversion to another's religious choice, so much for all that support of the constitution from the previous post.

As an MO jew, I have my sensabilities and religious practice. I can decide who I want to associate with, etc. But these J4J guys they target us. Look what this guy here has done, he interrupts our conversation to spew his irrational views. They do it on the street too. (let me tell u when Chabad does it on the street, it irks me too) I know he is wrong and have seen him asked to stop, but he cant, so people are now annoyed, and with justification.

Who the hell are you to dictate what someone should designate themselves as? Now try this, I don't like Jews, if they would only call themselves Muslims, things would be different.

You are without a doubt worse than the others, at least they were honest, you are actually looking to justify your aversion to another's religious choice, so much for all that support of the constitution from the previous post.

Some graduate student in psychology or sociology is missing an incredible opportunity to do the kind of PhD work that makes reputations instantly. All he/she needs to do is monitor the comments on this blog. Perhaps the topic should be "Inability of human specimins to stick to a topic presented" or perhaps even better would be "How anononymity reduces civility as seen in blog comments." Or maybe even "Forgetting the rules of polite society as seen on blogs." All three could more than adequately be researched just by following the comments thread on any of the postings here.

Consider therapy? Get a lawyer and sue your parents for cruel and unusual punishment or child abuse? Get a blackbelt in judo as self-protection against unwanted comments? Entertain the idea of plastic surgery on your name?

The one who should be annoyed is our Lord Jesus Himself. He came to the world to bring sinners closer to Hashem and yet there are still so many of His own that hate Him so! Still Yeshua loves you all and grieves the so many of you will spend eternity separated from Hashem because you refuse to put your Emunoh in His Son!

Just a little note of fact. A comment above, "I tolerate all religions, except J4J. If they simply called themselves Christian, thing would be different," is inaccurate. Researching will show you that J4J does not appear in any of the registries for recognized Christian religions or sects. They sure do not appear anywhere in the recognized divisions of Judaism either. J4J is NOT a religion but a rather screwed up attempt at proseltyzing Jews without any official church offering legitimacy to their efforts. Please, let's not even accidentally accord them a shred of legitimacy by calling them a religion.

She can't delete them or she would be in a position to be called a hypocrite.

"No one here, least of all myself, is attempting to legally curtail anyone's right to make unpopular, racist, or bigoted comments"-Orthomom

The comments are not bigoted, nor racist nor defaming to any one person, simply an annoyance to the people here. Now obviously simply deleting the comment would not be in any way shape or form, legal maneuvering but it would certainly curtail someone's right to make an unpopular comment simply because others don't want to hear it, so deal with it or stop claiming that everyone here is so tolerant of others.

I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and enjoying the delightful weather we;ve had these last few days.

I'm writing to remind you of the deal we made last week. Surely you recall that you agreed to convert at least 16 of Orthomom's commentors to Scientology, or Jews for Jesus, or Environmentalists for Al Gore, or whatever acid flashback you're worshiping this week.

Need I remind you that while I urged you not to make this wager, you did and if you lose, your liver is mine.

Please Wenrdow, no whiing about giving me your soul. I already told you, I have more souls than I care to count and the whole "deal with the devil, giving my soul to the devil is so last year.

You still get the better end of the bargain because I'm sure you need your liver less than you need your soul. When's the last drink you had a drink Rabbi? You know there are plenty of people who could use that liver while you just waste it.

And that Kedem grape jelly you gargle on Friday nights doesn't count for anything.

When all is said and done, while I do expect to win our little bet, nevertheless, I wish you good luck. Chump.